Data security fears still number one barrier to cloud and SaaS adoption

Today’s enterprise IT infrastructures are not largely hosted in the public cloud, nor are they based on software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings, with security being the single largest barrier when it comes to cloud and SaaS adoption. Those are among the key findings of a new survey by MarketCube commissioned by security company Ping Identity.

With the rise in data breaches and privacy incidents, enterprises are prioritizing the protection of their customers’ personally identifiable information, the report said.

MarketCube surveyed 301 large enterprise IT and security professionals online across the U.S. in May 2018, and found that only 21 percent said more than one half of their IT infrastructure is hosted in the public cloud. Three quarters said at least some percentage of their IT infrastructure is hybrid—meaning a mix of cloud, on-premises systems, and SaaS.

Security was cited as the number one barrier to cloud and SaaS adoption, with 43 percent of respondents saying it’s the biggest obstacle to cloud adoption, and 37 percent saying it’s the biggest barrier to SaaS adoption.

More than one quarter (27 percent) have experienced a breach of customer identity data stored in a public cloud, on-premises, or in a SaaS application provider’s cloud. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (71 percent) said their organizations are spending more on protecting customer identity data.